Most rulebooks contain a section explaining What is a roleplaying game?. But while this may be difficult and at the same time nauseatingly overdone already, there are relatively few attempts to depict role-playing. That's why I've started this list.

There are thousands of photos available, of course. I'm less interested in these. Instead, I'm looking for drawings etc. Please include as much information as possible: artist, source, date, title (if the picture has one), hyperlink...

What I find interesting, among other things, is to see how the artists try to make clear that we're seeing people engaged in an RPG, what is considered typical, how players are portrayed (age, gender, racial background), etc.My first impression is that (apart from photographs) most depictions are humorous: cartoons, comics, surprisingly often inverted: fantasy creatures playing humans.

Symbolic stuff on the table: dice, GM screen, sheets of paper. Sometimes: rulebook, miniatures and a playing board.

Support comes in many forms: community involvement, forum posts, submitting data, running PbF games, word-of-mouth advertising, financial donations... All these are vital to this site, and you have my sincere thanks for participating in any of them.

Currently: planning.

From The Unspeakable Vault of Doom. I've included those strips that are part of a series, so not all of these necessarily show actual tabletop play.

Support comes in many forms: community involvement, forum posts, submitting data, running PbF games, word-of-mouth advertising, financial donations... All these are vital to this site, and you have my sincere thanks for participating in any of them.

Illustration to a text by Linda Budinger - the artist might be Stephan Dierlamm. Published in the German RPG and Fantasy Fanzine "Der Menhir" (compare the RPG published by the same people: Der Menhir), issue 6, page 60:

One of the important historical predecessors of modern tabletop role-playing is the Prussian Kriegsspiel, invented 1811/1812 by Baron Reiswitz (also: Reisswitz) and substantially developed by his son, Georg Heinrich Rudolf Johann Baron von Reiswitz. It soon spread among army officers and was expanded and republished several times during the 19th century. Probably because of a dishonor (which also led to his suicide), Reiswitz was hardly ever mentioned as the original designer.

This short comic is interesting because it shows roleplaying without floorplan and minis, and without character sheets and dice (third page, third and fourth panels). Looking at the usual depictions, this is highly remarkable.

The "geeky" card (third from the left in the top row) shows somebody with a pen, a character sheet, and different shapes of dice. The person is wearing what looks like a costume (for LARP?) and holds a smartphone-like device, for extra geekiness I guess.